Sam Cooke Band

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Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur.

Influential as both a singer and composer, he is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocals and importance within popular music. His pioneering contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston, and popularized the likes of Otis Redding and James Brown. AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was "the inventor of soul music", and possessed "an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed".

I love listening to Live at the Harlem Square Club and Live at the Copa together. You really understand the breadth of his gift. To have something as raw and sweaty and intense as Harlem AND as smooth and charming as Copa is something not many artists could manage.

I love listening to Live at the Harlem Square Club and Live at the Copa together. You really understand the breadth of his gift. To have something as raw and sweaty and intense as Harlem AND as smooth and charming as Copa is something not many artists could manage.

The one moment in his entire discography that, to me, shows how effortless his ability was comes at the beginning of the Copa recording of "Tennessee Waltz" when he pauses to acknowledge the applause mid-line: "I was dancin' with my darlin', to that TENNE - thank you - SSEE WALTZ."

I've got more Sam Cooke on my phone than any other artist - not sure why it took me so long to look up this thread.

The one moment in his entire discography that, to me, shows how effortless his ability was comes at the beginning of the Copa recording of "Tennessee Waltz" when he pauses to acknowledge the applause mid-line: "I was dancin' with my darlin', to that TENNE - thank you - SSEE WALTZ."

I've got more Sam Cooke on my phone than any other artist - not sure why it took me so long to look up this thread.

Sam Cooke
The King of Soul. Perhaps more than any other artist, the man who created the genre we know a soul music. Coming out of a gospel background and blazing the trail for the genre that is arguably America's biggest contribution to music. From the outset of his career to his tragic death in his prime, Cooke was the rarest of combinations, an innovator AND a hitmaker. There may never have been a singer quite like him, able to move from the smoothest and most charming performances (At the Copa) to gritty and gutbucket raves (At the Harlem Square Club) with equal skill.

Recommended Listen:Live at the Harlem Square Club

Crash Course:
1. Live at the Harlem Square Club
2. Live at the Copa
3. Night Beat

Personal Note:
The two live albums, to me, are always best paired together to really show you the breadth of what Sam could do. Copa is a mostly white audience at an expensive supper club gig. Harlem Square Club is rowdy and ferocious. I could easily have swapped Night Beat for Ain't That Good News, which is an exceptional album, but Night Beat just has the unique mood to it.

Obviously this song has been covered a billion times and there's at least three outright classic versions of it (Cooke, Aretha and Otis), but I was really pleasantly surprised at how wonderful T-Pain's version was;

Newbie

Aside from a couple of posthumous records, which don't look very interesting, the only album of his I hadn't heard was Hits of the 50s from 1960. It's an entire cover album, no Cooke originals, which is a little bit of a shame. The songs are nicely arranged, and Sam is in full on smooth charmer mood, but it's a bit of a minor note in all honesty. Obviously, I could listen to him sing anything and still enjoy it, but it's all a little too polished for me.

It's all a bit vanilla, and not soulful in all honesty, very slow and gentle. Not a bad album or anything, and showed Cooke could do more than soul, but I think this probably the weakest of his ~10 or so studio records.